Family Proxy server howto

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From Anandtech:
Do you have a growing family at home slowly eating away at your bandwidth? Maybe you're a web surfing fanatic looking for a little more speed? If you answered yes to either, a caching proxy is for you. This simple addition to your home network can provide you with additional bandwidth by reducing common internet bandwidth usage. Normally these types of proxies are found in the commercial world, but they're just as useful at home.
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So what is a caching proxy server? The concept is pretty simple: when a request is made to a website, that content is then saved locally on the local caching proxy server. When another request for the same data is made by any machine on your network, that data is retrieved from your local proxy rather than the internet. The content can be anything from regular website content to a file you downloaded. For those with multiple computers in a single household, the bandwidth savings really adds up with patches and multi computer driver updates.
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Pretty pictures and more info at linky above.
 
free software linux distributions that do this :

ipcop / smoothwall / pfsense / endian

Hardware Firewall that does this:

Astaro / endian

If you willing to pay someone (like me), they can setup one of the "free" linux distributions on a box to do this, it would require an oldish machine with 2 network cards. Would most likely take someone about 1 hour to setup the whole system. You could also block certain sites during certain times, and have different rights for different users in the house for access to specific things.
 
I am setting up a pFsense and IPCOP machine, 2hdd's and testing the ease of use etc - will give you feedback
 
Personally I'm happy with ClarkConnect, if you're still able to get it now. Has plenty of other features that can be useful for home use without too much tinkering required.
 
I am using Squid (3.0.STABLE13) as a transparent & cache proxy with Shorewall as the firewall on PCLOS.

Very very easy to install and setup, 90% of the config is done in the /etc/squid/squid.conf .. my only hiccup was forgetting to add my proxy name in the /etc/hosts file, otherwise works better than expected.

I cannot imagine ever going without the use of a cache proxy, especially on a slower connection even though it's uncapped.

I find Opera slightly more responsive than Firefox when running the proxy settings in browser.. even alot quicker than using "Opera Turbo" mode only this time with images loaded for optimal display.

I used to make use of apt-cacher but see there is no need now as I have setup Synaptic Package Manger to run through the proxy as well. I have 10GB allocated for cache.
 
midkemia said:
free software linux distributions that do this :

ipcop / smoothwall / pfsense / endian

Hardware Firewall that does this:

Astaro / endian

If you willing to pay someone (like me), they can setup one of the "free" linux distributions on a box to do this, it would require an oldish machine with 2 network cards. Would most likely take someone about 1 hour to setup the whole system. You could also block certain sites during certain times, and have different rights for different users in the house for access to specific things.
Click to expand...

1 NIC will do too depending on your LAN setup, I installed and setup Squid with Shorewall in under 10 minutes .. will give FREE advice to anyone if needed, just a matter of entering the correct ACL entry in the squid.conf for IP/user/time restrictions.
 
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